"To prepare and sweeten British Gin.[100]
"Get from your distiller an empty puncheon or cask, which will contain about 133 gallons. Then take a cask of clear rectified spirits, 120 gallons, of the usual strength as rectifiers sell their goods at, put the 120 gallons of spirits into your empty cask.
"Then take a quarter of an ounce of oil of vitriol, half an ounce of oil of almonds, a quarter of an ounce of oil of turpentine, one ounce of oil of juniper berries, half a pint of spirit of wine, and half a pound of lump sugar. Beat or rub the above in a mortar. When well rubbed together, have ready prepared half a gallon of lime water, one gallon of rose water; mix the whole in either a pail, or cask, with a stick, till every particle shall be dissolved; then add to the foregoing, twenty-five pounds of sugar dissolved in about nine gallons of rain or Thames water, or water that has been boiled, mix the whole well together, and stir them carefully with a stick in the 133 gallons cask.
"To force down the same, take and boil eight ounces of alum in three quarts of water, for three quarters of an hour; take it from the fire, and dissolve by degrees six or seven ounces of salt of tartar. When the same is milk-warm pour it into your gin, and stir it well together, as before, for five minutes, the same as you would a butt of beer newly fined. Let your cask stand as you mean to draw it. At every time you purpose to sweeten again, that cask must be well washed out; and take great care never to shake your cask all the while it is drawing."
Another method of fining spiritous liquors, consists in adding to it, first, a solution of sub-acetate of lead, and then a solution of alum. This practice is highly dangerous, because part of the sulphate of lead produced, remains dissolved in the liquor, which it thus renders poisonous. Unfortunately, this method of clarifying spiritous liquors, I have good reason to believe, is more frequently practised than the preceding method, because its action is more rapid; and it imparts to the liquor a fine complexion, or great refractive power; hence some vestiges of lead may often be detected in malt spirit.
The weakened spirit is then sweetened with sugar, and, to cover the raw taste of the malt spirit, false strength is given to it with grains of paradise, Guinea pepper, capsicum, and other acrid and aromatic substances.
METHOD OF DETECTING THE PRESENCE OF LEAD IN SPIRITOUS LIQUORS.
The presence of lead may be detected in spiritous liquors, as stated on pages [70] and [86]. The cordial called shrub frequently exhibits vestiges of copper. This contamination, I have been informed, is accidental, and originates from the metallic vessels employed in the manufacture of the liquor.